How do I use Pinterest?

This week’s webinar (Friday, 1/11 at 2pm Eastern) and blog series is going to focus on Pinterest. Like a lot of business owners, you probably think that social media is a big waste of time, it’s something that people with no life do when they come home from their boring day job. So, you are partially correct. As of last spring (the most recent reliable data available) there were about 15 million unique users each month. Here are some additional facts I found on a great website called Brandignity:

iPhone app downloaded 200,000 time per/day

14 minutes average time spent on Pinterest

2.3 billion page views just in March

Over 4 million daily unique visitors

Do you still think that Pinterest is not a place to market your business? 2.3 billion page views in one month, do you think that maybe one or two of those people would like to see pictures of your product? You may be a service provider, like me, so you’ve already dismissed Pinterest because it’s a visual network. Here’s an idea for visual communication of a service:

Some very smart people began the use of infographics last year and I have to say, as someone in the marketing field, I find them really useful. They provide a tremendous amount of data in a small space and do it in a way that encourages reading the whole graphic.

So no matter what kind of business you are in, there is a visual communication that can be used to define your brand and market your business. And people are already there, looking for fun things on Pinterest. That’s the key to Pinterest, it’s all about fun. The news is always bad on TV, so people turn to social media for some fun and joy in their lives. There has to be a balance and it’s better to have your business associated with the fun things in life rather than war, mass shootings, the fiscal cliff, etc.

You may be convinced that Pinterest is a good idea, but since it is relatively new, you may not really know what it is. This social network is all about sharing photos, as you have probably gathered so far. But what separates Pinterest from say Flickr, is the ability to group the photos into “Boards”. They’ve created a space where you can group your photos together based on a theme that you choose. Flickr does let you put photos in albums that you choose, so the difference is that when you look at the Pinterest board you see all the photos at once so the visual is different. You can also comment on the photos, like and share them by “re-pinning” them to one of your boards. The sharing element is the key difference between just a photo sharing site where your photos are available (generally) only to those you invite. Pinterest boards are available to anyone to view, they are generally public. They did just come out with a new feature where you can create “secret” boards that are not public, probably in answer to people who want to be able to share their photos with friends and family but not the whole world.

People can search on Pinterest for photos of their favorite products or brands, categories of products or really just about anything. There are numerous cooking pages where chefs can show off their creations, crafting sites have become really popular and travel sites are also booming.

The old adage about a picture saying a thousand words is really true and Pinterest proves it. People would much rather share a funny photo than send a business referral. So think about how easy it would be for your current customers to share a cute kitten photo that links to your vet business? Or what about this infographic that links back to my blog?

It’s an amazing way to get the word out and encourage sharing about your business without being “salesy”.

The great news is that pinning just takes a few seconds and the easiest way to share on Pinterest doesn’t even require you to be on the site. When you sign up you get a little widget that goes in your bookmark bar so when you see a picture you like, you can just pin it right from the website you’re on without getting distracted by another site.

Tomorrow I will go into more detail on how to get started, your profile and setting up boards. Nuts and bolts stuff that you will need to get started.